The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1887-12-29
TURN OF The WHEEL.
New York Sunday Mercury.

New York Sunday Mercury.
Flora would have liked to say some
thing more-to have softened in some
way the edge Of what had gone before.
But, after all, what would one say?
Maskelyne did not seem to expect, or
wish for, anything further. He walk
ed on by her side speechless, suilen,
staring in front of him. Once or twice.
when the roughness of the descent rem
dered such service necessary, he offer
ed his hand, and always without
looking at her. Flora concluded de-
terminedly at last that the silence
should not be broken by her. He was
taking her refusal as q man might be
expected to take these things. OF
course, it hurt their pride dreadfully.
And not more than one of them out
Of thousand really cared enough for
girl to be truly her friend after she
had done his vanity this, to him,
objectionable injury.
The camp was in sight now, in the
valley below them. Flora hoped.
petulant!y, that. since her rejected
suitor would assume so uncomfortable
and disagreeable an attitude he would
at least keep as much as possible out
of her way until she should start for
the East, in a few days.
This Maskelyne scruplously did.
And yet Flora was scarcely satisfied.
There was a vague discomfort in her
senses.
Once she brought herself sharply to
task. Well, after all, what did she
want? Would she have liked to &C.
cept Maskelyne, to marry him? She
was very young, she knew she was
beautiful, and now, with all this
money that had come to them, ambi-
tions, slumbering before, had sprung
into life vivid and insistent. And why
not? Was it not natural, Flora Wade
asked herself, defantly, that a girl
who felt such capacities with
in her as she was conscious of
should want to exercise them in a
brilliant field, and WELD such social
prestige as they gave? For little while,
q few years at least, she wanted to
live-to live!-and enjoy her life! If she
married now a. poor engineer in the
Western wilds, what would her life be-?
OF course, if one loved a man very
much. But she did not Mask
elyne, she assured herself, fercely. Not
at least enough for that. Oh yes, he
would think her frivolous, fippant,
vain, a shallow, wor dly coquette.
He would say she had trifled with
him-had led him on.
Flora stopped in her inward soliIo-
guy. Her heart beat just little
more quickly. A tall, fair-haired fel-
low has crossed slowly in front of the
open door. He was not conscious of
being seen. He was walking with his
cap pulled over his eyebrows and a
moody look in his down-bent eyes.
"He might at least have the decency
to wish me a bon voyage" thought
Flora, with angry bitterness.
She was going East the very next
day. Her trunks werc packed. A let
ter from the distant relative. fash
ionable woman of society, who was to
chaperon her during the next few
years, and who already had Flora's
younger sister with her, lay
before her. Visions and
dreams of success, OF happiness such
as the brilliant world gives. opened
beyond. Flora sat staring out at the
westering sunlight till it had quite
faded and the shadows filled the val.
ley. When she finally rose from her
chair, as one shaking off sleep, there
was q suspicious moisture in her dark
eyes.
After all, if Howard Maskelyne had
bided his time, if he had not been pre-
cipitated, perhaps Flora Wade would
not have gone east the next morning.
Who knows?
Howard Maskelyne remained west
for three years. His resolution to
succeed-to 'fger ahead"-had, as
some of his companions who knew him
better than the rest perceive without
perceiving the cause, been reinforced
by sort OF dogged defiance. He gave
himself up to his work with that undi-
vided and tireless allegiance which a
man manifests toward the stern as
poets OF life when he has suffered a
sentimental disenchantment-if, that
is, he does not take the opposite
course and slight that aspect a!togeth-
er. He did not take a vacation when
he could have dono SO. He seemed to
dread even a days idleness. He grew
older, and the lines deepened in his
face. Some of the other fellows sur
missed, at times, that there was a wom-
an in the case. But their habitual
cast OF thought did not induce them
to dwell upon suppositions OF this ma
ture very abidingly.
It is probable that Maskelyne would
have gone on in this fashion ten years
longer, slowly but surely rising in his
profession, and making money which
he did not seem to care for or know
what to do with, if his father had not
suddenly died. Maskelyne, on this
event, came East. Old Mr.. Maskelyne
had been a frugal person, highly re-
spected as an excellent citizen. He had
not been held to have laid by much
of this worlds goods. But it proved,
contrary to expectation, in the course
Of Investigation, that he mad left q
large fortune behind. Howard Mas
kelyne was East. He determined to
stay.
He took up the old existence now,
by his long absence become a new one,
listlessly. He thought the zest would
come back, but somehow it did not.
Helooked back at times upon that ep-
soie in his life which had made all this
difference-this break which did not
promise ever to be wholly bridged over
with almost fury OF resentment.
It CALLED him to the quick to acknowl-
edge that the treachery Of a mere hol-
low woman OF the world should have
laid his life barren in this way. He
had gotten to feel that he had lost all
reverence for her sex through her.
She had lowered his whole standard.
There were occasions when he told
himself that il be despised her less he
would hate her for the wrong she had